


Luke Triton and the Hidden Relics: Episode 0

by Fallen_feather92



Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: Anime, Complete, F/M, Filling in Blanks, How Don Paulo captured him, episode 10, how Luke got involved, lmj
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24982180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallen_feather92/pseuds/Fallen_feather92
Summary: Luke's disappearance came as a shock to both his wife, and Professor Layton. But what led up to his capture by Don Paulo? What lead him to believe that he was in danger, thus driving him to push Marina out, and leave those clues for Professor Layton? This is my take on what lead up to Episode 10 of the anime.
Relationships: Luke Triton/Marina Triton
Comments: 9
Kudos: 12





	1. The Purple Crystal

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! So here’s another story to fill in some gaps I had questions for from the anime, but found no fanfictions of! How Luke found himself in the clutches of Don Paulo in episode 10 of the anime. This one is just a short story, but enjoy!
> 
> Random side note, I have no idea where Luke and his family were said to move to in America, so I just picked New York City. I am struggling to figure out what Luke and Marina would do for a living. I feel like Luke would go into Archeology. Marina, I’m not sure…

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into moving to London!” the purple haired woman laughed as she sat in the back of the cab with her husband. Said husband, Luke Triton, grinned at his wife of a year, Marina, and gave her a squeeze.

“Honestly, neither can I!” he admitted with a laugh, causing Marina to laugh as well, leaning against his shoulder, before looking out the window.

“It’s so different from New York,” she sighed, her American accent clear. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.”

“I think you will,” Luke said warmly, giving her hand a loving squeeze. “After all, I’ll be with you every step of the way, to help you.” Marina looked up at Luke, and smiled warmly at that.

“I can’t wait. Especially for those mysteries you promised me,” she added. Luke could only grin at that.

* * *

The cab dropped them off at a small, lovely two story house made of green stone, trimmed in white with blue awnings. There were also large windows and a white picket fence. Bushes surrounded the house, separating it slightly from the taller building to the side, and the red brick building behind it. Marina gasped, her eyes growing wide.

“This is our new house?” she said, her whole face lighting up. Luke smiled, glancing between the address, and the paper in his hand.

“According to the note from the real estate agent. It looked amazing in the photos, but this…” he shook his head, liking it even more in person.

“Let’s go check it out!” Marina said, snagging Luke’s hand and pulling him towards the front door. Luke laughed at that.

“Marina, wait! Our bags!” he said, making the woman pause and glance back at the still waiting cab.

“Right,” she giggled, letting go of her husband and helping him unload their suitcases from the back of the car, before walking into the beautiful house.

* * *

Luke and Marina had started packing and shipping their belongings overseas to the new house last month, and the real estate agent had been kind enough to collect the packages and bring them inside, meaning most of their belongings were already at the new house, but still packed up. Luke and Marina spent their time unpacking the necessities, and moving the rest into the attic, which sat above the room Luke had decided to use for his study.

Luke carefully climbed the ladder, pushing the box ahead of him and into the attic, when he realized that the previous house owner had left a few things behind. Just three boxes in the back corner, nothing more. Driven by curiosity, Luke moved closer, placing his box against the wall near the trap door, and knelt by the closer of the three older boxes. After a moment’s hesitation, he opened the box, and blinked at its contents.

“Books?” he muttered, pulling one of them out and thumbing through it. The book looked to be on Egyptian mythology. Luke placed that one aside and flipped through a few more. “Greek mythology, Norse, Azran mythology,” Luke muttered, before blinking. “Geology? That seems out of place,” he muttered, looking back in the box, only to find a few more books about Geology, along with architecture, maths, a few older atlases, even an almanac.

At the bottom of the box, however, in the corner, was a dark purple crystal. Luke blinked at that, reaching into the box and carefully pulling it out, weighing it in his hand.

“Amethyst? No… hmm,” Luke hummed, putting a hand to his chin, holding the crystal up to the light to examine it.

“Luke! Here’s another box that needs to go up there. It looks like those old Christmas decorations Brenda gave us,” Marina called from the foot of the ladder. Luke jumped slightly, pocketing the crystal and leaning over so he could see Marina through the trap door.

“Alright, I’ll be right there,” he said with a smile, quickly putting the old books back into the box, before climbing back down the ladder.

* * *

In all of the business of moving and getting settled in to the house and their new jobs, it was a week before Luke could even think to visit Professor Layton. His archeology job saw him placed at a museum; not the London Museum, but a much smaller one, and he was eager to talk to the professor about his work.

He was also curious to see if the professor knew what the stone he found was, so he placed it in his bag as he headed out the door, kissing Marina on the cheek.

 _I can’t wait to see them again,_ Luke thought as he walked, his feet leading him towards the University he knew so well. _Kat would be ten at this point, and Alfendi is already 18!_ Luke shook his head, remembering the red-haired-hot-headed teenage genius that the Professor had adopted not too long after Katrielle. _I hope they like the gifts I bought them from America._ He adjusted his grip on his book bag strap, only to realize a man in a black trench coat was trailing him. Luke tensed slightly, memories of Targent coming to mind, but he realized that whoever this man was, he was sloppier than most of those agents.

As casually as ever, Luke turned down a quieter street, one most people had no reason to walk on. A moment later, the man followed him onto the street, confirming Luke’s suspicion. _Alright, then. Have it your way,_ Luke thought, before suddenly turning down another street, and breaking into a run. He didn’t make it too far before two more trench coat wearing men stepped out of an alleyway just in front of him. Luke dropped into a baseball slide, taking out the feet of one of the men. He was just flipping himself back to his feet with a fourth man he hadn’t noticed before stepped from the alleyway and grabbed him by the bookbag, throwing him deeper into the space between the two buildings, and away from the street, where prying eyes would notice the attack.

Luke rolled with the impact, using the momentum to quickly get back to his feet, and bought his hands up to defend his face, maneuvering so his back was to the wall, not letting anyone else sneak up on him. The first man joined his comrades, and there were three more waiting in the alleyway, bringing their total to seven. Luke frowned deeply.

“Give us yer backpack boy, and everything in yer pockets, and no one has to get hurt,” one of the men said, stepping forward. He was taller than the others, with a blond ponytail sticking out of the back of his fedora. He also had a scruffy pale beard, and a scar over his left eye. Luke scowled at him, lifting his fists more to better protect his face.

“Somehow, I don’t believe you,” he said, having dealt with these types before. Not only in the criminals he faced with the Professor, but also the ones he faced in New York, alongside Marina.

“Hah. We warned ya,” the man said, pulling a switch knife out of his coat and lunging at Luke. Luke swayed to the side, avoiding the first attack, a thrust, and ducked under the second second attack, a horizontal swipe. He then surged upward, slamming his shoulder into the man’s chest to throw him off balance, before following up with two right jabs, first to the chest, then to the face. The man staggered backwards, surprised by that, before scowling.

“Don’ jus’ stand there. Get ‘im!” the man yelled, his voice thick with the sound of a broken nose. Luke quickly looked left to right, watching as the other six men surged towards him, attempting to gauge who would reach him first. The first guy was the one on the far right, who threw a left hook at Luke. Luke ducked under the attack and surged up, delivering a devastating uppercut. He then spun on his heel to block a kick from behind, catching the man’s leg against his side and throwing the man’s weight into his neighbor. He went to turn again, to block another attack, when fire raced across his right shoulder.

Luke felt the strap of the bookbag loosen, and spun around, slamming the heel of his palm into the jaw of the man holding the knife. Luke caught a quick glimpse of red on the blade, and his stomach did a backflip. He ignored it, though, and swung the bag off his back, slamming it into the faces of two of my attackers, who stumbled back. Seeing a clear path, Luke shot over the heads of his downed attackers to make a run for it, when pain flashed across the back of his hand. Gasping, he let go of the bag as a reflex, bringing his now bleeding hand to my chest. Before he could turn, one of the men tackled him into the wall of the alleyway.

Dazed, he weakly tried to shove the man off who went through his pockets, but didn’t have the strength to fully push him off.

“Let’s just take the bag. He only has his wallet in his pockets,” the man said, swiping the cash out of the wallet before flinging it back in Luke’s face and running after his companions, just as Luke’s mind started to clear. Shaking his head, he quickly pushed himself up and ran to the end of the alleyway, only to see that all seven attackers had already vanished.

* * *

The walk home seemed longer than earlier. Rather than visiting the Professor after his attack, Luke decided to just head back to the house. He wasn’t seriously injured, thank goodness, but the cut on his hand and shoulder stung, and he was sore from where he was thrown into the alley, and slammed into the wall.

As he entered the house, thankful his keys had been in his pocket and uninteresting to his attackers, Marina poked her head out from the kitchen.

“You’re back ear—Luke!?” she gasped, alarmed at the state he was in. Luke smiled weakly at his wife as she rushed over, taking him by the elbows and leading him over to the sofa. She immediately pulled off his jacket and shirt to inspect the damage to his shoulder. “What happened?” she demanded as she inspected the damage.

“I was mugged. They got away with my bag and all my cash,” Luke explained. Marina frowned deeply at that, standing and going to grab the first aid kit. She carefully cleaned out the cut on his shoulder first, sighing in relief that it was a shallow cut.

“Did you go to the police?” she asked. Luke shook his head.

“Not yet. I was gonna call them after I got home,” he replied, leaning into her. Marina shook her head at that, taking care of the cut on his hand, too, before standing and making him tea.

Luke sighed and stood, going over to their phone and calling Scotland Yard.

* * *

After giving his statement to the inspectors, who were unable to find to find the attackers or his bag, Luke sat heavily in his study, dropping his chin into his palm, elbow resting on his desk. There was a notebook on the top with mysteries he and Marina had solved together, a few pictures, and some other small keepsakes, but he wasn’t really seeing them. His mind kept going over the attack, and everything that happened.

They were definitely after something specific that they thought he had, but what it was, he had no idea. It seemed like they thought it would be in his bag, but all that was in there were his journal, some books from the library, his gifts to Alfendi and Kat, and that purple crystal—

His thoughts grinded to a halt as his eyes fell onto a picture of himself holding Katrielle. She was still a baby, while Luke himself was fifteen. It was a few months after the ship had sunk, and he had _flown_ to London to visit for a few weeks at the beginning of his summer vacation.

There had been a book open on Professor Layton's desk, with a pencil sketch in it, that looked exactly like…

“No way… the Relics?” Luke breathed, before realizing exactly what his attackers had been after, and just how dangerous this mystery would be. He turned to look at the door to his study, then back at the picture.

“I… I’m sorry, Marina,” he sighed, before delving into this new mystery, hoping, beyond hope, to not get anyone else involved. At least, not until the end.


	2. Preparations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke realizes where his muggers have set up their base of operations, and makes preparations to face the danger ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as I looked over my outline and everything, I realized this was going to actually be one chapter shorter then what I originally planned. 
> 
> That, or chapter two was going to be extremely short. So, I bumped the chapter count down to 3 to fix that! Even still, chapter two is short… but that’s okay! The real action begins next chapter!
> 
> I also realized, while watching Episode 10, that Luke’s shutting Marina out for her safety isn’t entirely unlike what Clark did to Luke in The Last Specter. Just putting that out there…

Luke yawned as he walked along the darkening streets of London, reaching up to adjust the dark blue fedora on his head. It was getting late, and his eyes were tired from staring into books all day at work, then going to the London Library to stare into more books, searching for information about the Relic Stones. He thought about the book that was in his new bookbag. It was a record of the auction sales, which he knew the head librarian was in charge of keeping track of, hence the book in his bag.

He was trying to see if he could track down any of the other countless relic stones, not knowing just how many had passed through London, but other than the names of those who bought them in the auctions, there was very little else to go by. He couldn’t even tell which of those names had bought the stone he’d found in his attic.

Just as he went to cross the street, Luke noticed someone familiar from the corner of his eye. The man was average build and height, wearing a dark hat and trench coat. He had a blond ponytail sticking out of the back of the cap, a scruffy pale beard, and a scar over his eye. Luke frowned, remembering him as the leader of the thugs who had mugged him and stole his bag before.

The man was just finishing a cigarette, blowing the smoke into the air, before flicking the butt to the ground and walking back towards the more lit up area. Without even consciously making the decision, Luke moved away from the street he was about to cross and followed the man, making sure to keep a safe distance. The man never looked back, though, not once suspecting he was being followed, which suited Luke just fine.

After turning here and there, never deviating from the busier streets, the man stopped in front of the London Museum. He glanced around, causing Luke to duck behind a car, before walking briskly down an alleyway. Luke carefully walked up to the alleyway and peeked down the space between the two buildings, not following him down it, remembering the last time he was in an alley with this man.

As it turned out, he didn’t need to. The suspicious man in the black coat stopped at a door set in the wall of the museum and pulled out a keyring. After a moment of fumbling with them, he inserted the correct key and entered the building. Luke heard the soft _click_ of the door’s lock engaging behind him.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Luke muttered to himself, glancing up at the Museum, before turning to head home.

* * *

“Welcome home, Luke! Dinner’s almost ready!” Marina called as Luke stepped through the door. Luke paused on the steps, guilt gnawing away at his hungry stomach. He let out a soft sigh, however.

“Um, no thanks, Marina. I’m not hungry, and I still have a lot of work to do,” he called back, before heading into his study, closing the door behind him. Another soft sigh escaped him as he glanced at the picture of the two of them sitting on his desk.

_Guess I’m more like Dad then I thought_ , he thought with a tiny smile, thinking back to those six months in Misthallary, when Clark had shut him out. _I’m sorry, Marina, but I’m doing this to keep you safe…_

“So it seems like the Museum is their base of operations,” Luke muttered to himself, putting a hand to his chin and beginning to pace. “They’re also willing to use violence.” His eyes flickered down to the faint, mostly healed cut on his hand, remembering when they attacked him in the alleyway. “That means I’ll have to be careful.” He reached his desk at the other end of the room, turned on his heel, and began to pace towards the door again. “I _am_ an Archeologist, though, and it _is_ a museum. I can use that to my advantage. But I should still take precautions…” his eyes wandered to the wall of framed pictures, all from his time as Professor Layton’s apprentice, and all of their adventures together.

There was the one Dean Delmona took in the Professor’s office of the two of them sitting on the sofa, and another, right after they solved the mystery of the Spector in Misthallery, right after the Professor agreed to take him on as an apprentice. The one in front of the Crown Petone, before they watched the opera and played that crazy game of Eternal life, and the one in Monte d’Ore, where Randall was stealing the professor’s hat, and the one of all of them on the Bostonius. St. Mystere right after Flora joined them, Dropstone after rescuing Flora from the barn…

Luke smiled sadly to himself. He didn’t want to get the professor involved. But he also knew, if something were to happen to him, the Professor would be able to figure it out in a heartbeat. He just needed to leave him a message…

Luke spun on his heel looking around his office. The first and most obvious thing was the blue rug with the white ‘abstract’ design on it. He’d fallen in love with it when he first found it in the oddities shop back in New York, recognizing it instantly as a disguised map of one of his favorite sections of London. It might have been the hidden nature of it, or it might have been simply homesickness, but Luke had instantly bought it and put it in his room, and the rug had moved with him into the apartment he and Marina had shared, then again when they moved to London. His eyes roamed over the rug until he found the square he was looking for.

_Now, how to show that exact spot?_ he thought, looking around again, before looking up at the attic, his eyes widening. “Of course!” he breathed, quickly climbing the ladder into attic. Last time he was up here, he’d notice there was a line of plaster in the floor that seemed weaker then the rest of the floor. Upon closer inspection of both the attic floor and study ceiling, he had realized there was once a crack that had been fixed, though not professionally. He hadn’t been too happy about it at the time, and had planned on calling a contractor out soon to repair it professionally, but now, it worked perfectly, especially since the one end of the crack was shaped just like an arrow.

_I’ll finish setting his up tomorrow, when the sun is out. Then, I’ll go to the Museum._ Luke decided as his eyes fell onto the clock on his desk, realizing just how late it was.


	3. The London Museum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke follows through with his plan, but finds he's bitten off a little more than he can chew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hi guys! I was actually planning on having this up sooner, but my power went out the other day, for most of the day, so… yeah, that didn’t happen.
> 
> When they say Donald is the Museum’s public servant, I’m assuming that means curator? That seemed to be the role he was playing? I don’t know, subtitles be weird sometimes. I’m going with Curator.
> 
> Edited slightly to fix typos. Please forgive me. I wrote this in between calls at work, haha.

The next day found Luke confidently walking up to the London Museum, his bag slung over his shoulder. He had a notebook to take notes in, mainly to add to the illusion of a researching archeologist, and walked through the Museum with confidence. Right in the entrance hall were numerous fossils that he knew were discovered by Dr. Schrader and his father when Clark was Schrader’s assistant. Luke couldn’t help but smile slightly at the thought, before shaking his head, getting down to business. He moved over to the fossils that were theorized to be created by sea life, and started to sketch one of them into his notebook.

Meanwhile, he kept an eye out, watching the slow trickle of people around him. There was a bored looking young couple being pulled through by an older gentleman, two older gentleman roaming around, and—

“Hello, young man. Can I help you?” a gravelly voice to his left suddenly said. Luke looked up from his sketch and blinked at the man. He was short, about a centimeter or two below Luke’s height, and stocky. He had ginger hair pulled back into a low ponytail that matched the ginger mustache, and a tiny nose that completely mismatched his prominent chin. He was smiling slightly at Luke, but there was something behind it. Something Luke couldn’t put his finger on…

“Ah, hello,” Luke said, switching his pencil to his left hand and offering his right for a hand shake. “My name is Luke Triton. I am an archeologist, and I was just studying these fossils,” he said, smiling as the other man shook his hand. The other’s eyes grew wide for a second.

“Triton!?” he muttered incredulously, before shaking his head, glancing at the fossils. “Um, certainly not the same…?”

“Oh, no,” Luke laughed, taking his hand back and playing with the strap of his bag. “That would be my father, Clark Triton,” he said. _That was weird. He said my name like he knew me, but we’ve never met…_

“Ah, I see. I am Donald Zachbarn, by the way. The Curator,” he said with a warm smile.

“I see,” Luke smiled back. _But he didn’t know the first name of one of the people who discovered these fossils…?_ Luke glanced back at the stones his father had discovered while acting as Schrader’s assistant. _This HAS to do with those men who mugged me! I just know it!_

“So, what is it that you were studying, anyway?” Zachbarn asked. Luke smiled.

“At this point, just some fossils. The museum I work for found them recently, in an area close to where these were discovered. I decided to study these to see if there were any similarities,” Luke explained.

“I see,” Zachbarn was quiet for a moment, before nodding to himself. “Well, young man, if you would like, I can let you study them closer. It would just have to be in my office. What do you say?” the man asked with a smile. Luke studied him for a moment, before plastering an excited smile across his face.

“That would be a great help!”

* * *

“Here we are. If you’ll just wait here, I’ll be back with the fossils,” Zachbarn said, before closing the door behind him, leaving Luke alone in the office.

 _This was a trap_ , Luke thought. _I’m not sure who he is, but this is all too suspicious…_

After working with, and learning so much from Professor Layton, Luke knew to trust these gut feelings. These flashes of intuition.

So, just like his study, he knew he had to leave a message for the professor.

 _But what can I use that Zachbarn won’t notice?_ He stood from the sofa he was on and looked around, before spotting at bookshelf. _There!_

Luke quickly rearranged the books on the shelf, thanking his lucky stars that what he needed was there.

_‘All_

_of_

_Lu’_

_…_

_‘Art in Kenya;_

_KE’_

_…_

_‘M_

_i_

_d_

_n_

_i_

_g_

_h_

_t’_

_…_

_‘I_

_S_

_M’_

_…_

_‘He_

_Says’_

…

_‘Art_

_History_

_of_

_Re_

_definition_ ’

“Three, two, five, two, one, five,” Luke muttered, before looking around the room again. “Now how to show that to the Professor?” his eyes landed on the chandelier, with the six strings of crystals hanging from it. He darted over, carefully standing on the table, and tampered with the crystal strings, snapping them so that they showed the numbers he needed.

Pocketing the extra crystals, Luke jumped down from the table and quickly looked around, first going over to check the desk. Other then papers about the museum itself, there wasn’t anything of interest. He moved from behind the desk, over to one of the cases, where he thought he caught of glimpse of purple, when—

The office door slammed open. Men in dark trench coats swarmed into the office, most of them heading straight at Luke. Luke frowned deeply, bringing his fists up to protect his face, but they didn’t attack right away. Instead, the ones in the door moved aside to let Zachbarn step inside.

“This is the end of the line for you, Triton. We were willing to leave you alone once we got what we needed, but you couldn’t resist putting your nose in where it doesn’t belong, could you? Just like that nosy professor,” he growled. Luke frowned deeply at him.

“’Professor’? You know Professor Layton?” he asked. The man simply scoffed, before nodding to his henchmen. The men surged forward. Luke jumped back to avoid the punch one threw his way, and blocked a second attack, before dropping low, kicking both men’s feet out from under them. As they fell, he jumped over them and shot towards the door, swaying to the side and ducking to avoid more hits and grabs.

Of course, the front entrance was blocked by more of the goons. Luke knew he wouldn’t be able to get out that way. So, he turned and ran up the stairs. More of the goons appeared at the top, with the blond one smirking at him. Luke frowned and hopped from the stair case onto the railing, thankful that a huge part of his Karate training was balance.

As he ran past the blond, he swiped at Luke’s feet. Luke hopped up, dodging the attack, and spun in the air, lashing out with his foot and kicking the man in the side of the face, sending him rolling down the stairs, into the goons that had been chasing Luke. He landed on the floor of the second story landing and nodded to himself, turning to run again.

_CRACK!_

Something hard slammed across his face, sending Luke sprawling into the railing with a grunt. He quickly rolled himself onto his back and looked up to see a goon standing over him with a smirk, holding a baton. He raised it again, ready to bring it down on Luke. Luke rolled out of the way and onto his feet, quickly looking around for an exit.

 _There!_ A window, higher up, but it was open to let in fresh air. Luke knew he could probably scale the wall and climb out the window. He quickly turned his attention back to the man in front of him. The man swung the baton again, and Luke ducked under the attack, sending two driving punches into the man’s ribs. The man dropped the baton and doubled over. Luke darted around him, making a break for the window…

Something grabbed his ankle. He slammed into the ground hard, the air escaping his lungs in a loud _whoosh_. He rolled over to see the man he’d just taken down holding his ankle in an iron grip.

Luke kicked at his hand, but before he could get free, he felt another body land across his back, then another on his legs. He struggled, trying to get free, when an iron like grip closed over his wrists, pulling them back and together behind his back. He scowled, looking up as Zachbarn walked over with a smug look.

“Not even your precious Professor will find you now.”

Luke frowned deeper, but couldn’t help the small sense of satisfaction rolling through him.

_That’s what you think._

* * *

Luke wasn’t sure how long he was in the dark. He knew, occasionally, the goons would bring him water and food, so there was a small comfort in knowing they weren’t trying to kill him, or leave him for dead.

 _Probably keeping me alive in case they need help solving the puzzle…_ he sighed softly, resting his chin on his knees, his arms around his legs. _I wonder how Marina is doing… I hope she’s okay…_

Just then, he heard the lock disengage on the large metal doors. He lifted his head lightly, turning towards them as they opened, letting light in. Luke had to blink a few times, as it was blinding after so long in the dark, but smiled as he took in the three figures in the doorway.

_Professor! Rosa! Marina!_

“As much as you may want to solve a puzzle, one must never make a woman sad. That’s how an English gentleman should behave, Luke.”


End file.
